Fast, Reliable Chimney Liner & Rebuild Across Crafton
Chimney liner replacement and rebuild work in Crafton typically runs $2,800-$8,500 depending on whether we’re dropping a stainless steel liner into a sound flue or rebuilding a stack that’s lost its structural integrity. Most liner installations our Chimney Liner & Rebuild crew handles in the borough wrap up in a single day, with rebuilds stretching to two or three when the weather cooperates. If you’re seeing white efflorescence staining your brick, smelling smoke in upstairs rooms, or hearing debris tumble down the flue during one of Crafton’s wind-driven rainstorms, the chimney was likely built for coal heat and never properly adapted for what it’s venting now. We’ve been driving out to Crafton from our Pittsburgh-area base for over 42 years, and we know the difference between a quick liner drop on a straight run up from a basement furnace and the full rebuild a settled, spalling stack on a hillside lot demands. Call (844) 803-1545 - a live person answers, even at 10 p.m. on a Sunday.
Why Hearthstone Chimney Co. Is Crafton’s Preferred Chimney Liner & Rebuild Company
Crafton homeowners don’t call us twice for the same problem. That’s the 90-Day Done Right Promise in action - in writing, no arguing. If the liner seal fails or a rebuilt course settles, we come back and make it right without paperwork wars.
Our reputation here was built one brick at a time, starting with the first calls we took from families along Noble Street and Bradford Avenue back in the 1980s. Those original customers still live in the borough, and they still recommend us to neighbors. We’ve earned strong reviews from Crafton residents who mention specifically that our technicians showed them camera photos of the flue damage, explained the repair in plain English, and stuck to the upfront price.
Response time to Crafton averages under 90 minutes during business hours because we keep crews staged throughout Allegheny County. When a liner fails mid-winter and carbon monoxide alarms start chirping, that matters. We also understand the local terrain - the way a chimney on a slope-sited home off Crafton Boulevard settles differently on the buried uphill side versus the exposed downhill face. That knowledge prevents misdiagnosing a structural shift as simple liner wear.
Russell Haines has directed our operations since 1984, and his insistence on documenting every inspection with Level-2 camera footage means Crafton homeowners see what we see before any work begins. No surprises. No trust-me hand-waving.
Our Chimney Liner & Rebuild Services in Crafton
Stainless Steel Liner Installation
A stainless steel liner is the right fix for most Crafton chimneys where the original clay tiles have cracked or the flue was never lined at all. These homes - the brick Craftsman bungalows along West Steuben Street, the frame colonials tucked up against the hillside - were built with oversized flues designed to move coal smoke fast. Modern gas and oil appliances need a narrower, smoother passage to maintain proper draft velocity. We size and install DuraFlex and Olympia Chimney stainless liners to match your appliance’s BTU output and the flue’s actual dimensions, not some guess from a catalog. Most installations finish in one day, with the old debris vacuumed out and the new liner sealed top and bottom.

Flexible Liner Installation
Not every Crafton chimney runs straight. The offset flues in some of the borough’s older row-style homes near the business district, where chimneys jog around stairwells or former coal chutes, need a liner that bends without kinking or creating trap points for creosote. Flexible liners from DuraFlex handle those transitions while maintaining the smooth interior surface that draft depends on. We’ve installed flexible liners in chimneys where rigid pipe simply wouldn’t make the turn, including several homes near the intersection of Crafton and Noble where the original masonry zigzags three feet off plumb. The installation takes longer - typically a day and a half - but the result vents safely and meets code.

Liner Replacement
When an existing stainless or clay liner has reached end of life, replacement isn’t always a simple pull-and-drop. In Crafton’s wet climate, we’ve found that failed liners often mask deeper problems: deteriorated smoke chambers, rotted thimbles where furnace pipes enter, or water-damaged flue shoulders that channel rain straight to the firebox. Our Chimney Liner & Rebuild in Crafton process starts with a full camera inspection so we know what we’re walking into. We replaced a liner last winter on a home near the top of the hill off Summit Street where the previous installation had been sized wrong for a high-efficiency furnace, causing condensation that rotted the thimble in three years. We fixed the root cause, not just the symptom.

Partial Chimney Rebuild
Sometimes the liner is sound but the masonry surrounding it isn’t. Crafton’s freeze-thaw cycles - sharp drops after wet, overcast days that are the norm here from November through March - pop bricks and open mortar joints faster than in drier climates. A partial rebuild addresses the damage from the roofline up, or from a specific compromised section, while preserving sound masonry below. We match replacement brick and mortar to the existing structure, using lime-based mortars on pre-1945 chimneys where Portland cement would trap moisture and accelerate deterioration. Last spring we rebuilt the top six courses on a chimney off Bradford Avenue where the crown had cracked and water had worked its way down through every freeze cycle for a decade.

What happens when you call
- 1
A real person answersNo phone trees - you reach a local pro.
- 2
You get an upfront price rangeHonest numbers before anyone is dispatched.
- 3
A background-checked tech heads outLicensed & insured, dispatched right away.
- 4
You approve before work beginsNothing starts until you say go.
Trusted Brands We Service in Crafton
We don’t substitute builder-grade materials to hit a lower bid. Our trucks carry DuraFlex flexible and rigid liners, Olympia Chimney stainless components, and Famco termination caps and adapters - the same parts we specify for our own homes. For rebuilds, we source through Copperfield Supply for specialty firebrick, refractory mortar, and crown-forming materials that withstand the thermal cycling and moisture exposure Crafton chimneys endure. Keeping these materials stocked locally means we don’t leave your chimney open overnight waiting for a part. When Russell Haines started this company in 1984, he made the decision to buy right and build once. That hasn’t changed.
Common Chimney Liner & Rebuild Problems We See in Crafton Homes
- Oversized, unlined flues venting modern appliances. Nearly every Crafton chimney built before 1945 was engineered for coal or wood combustion and later converted to gas or oil. These flues are too large for modern appliances, creating sluggish draft that condenses moisture and corrosive byproducts against the masonry. We regularly find this in the brick bungalows along West Steuben and the colonials up near the borough line.
- Spalling brick and open mortar joints from moisture infiltration. The Pittsburgh metro’s cloud-soaked climate means Crafton chimneys stay wet. Water enters through cracked crowns and deteriorated mortar, then freezes overnight through winter. By spring, the face of the brick pops off and mortar falls to the roof below. Hilltop homes catch more wind-driven rain, so the damage accelerates faster on exposed slopes.
- Chimney settlement on slope-sited foundations. Because Crafton sits on hilly terrain carved by Pittsburgh’s ridge-and-valley topography, many homes are built into slopes with the chimney stack rising at grade on the uphill side. The buried foundation side settles differently than the exposed downhill face, creating cracks and separations that a liner alone won’t fix. We’ve diagnosed this pattern on homes along Crafton Boulevard where the stack had pulled an inch away from the house wall.
- Deteriorated clay tile liners cracked by thermal shock. Original clay liners in Crafton’s housing stock weren’t designed for the rapid temperature swings of modern gas appliances firing on and off. The tiles crack, flake, and collapse, blocking the flue or creating gaps where combustion gases leak into the structure. A Level-2 camera inspection finds this before it becomes a hazard.
Pricing for Chimney Liner & Rebuild in Crafton, PA
Here’s what liner and rebuild work costs in Crafton’s market, based on jobs we’ve completed across the borough:
| Service | Typical Range in Crafton |
|---|---|
| Stainless steel liner installation (straight flue, standard appliance) | $2,800 - $4,200 |
| Flexible liner installation (offset flue, two or more bends) | $3,400 - $5,100 |
| Liner replacement with smoke chamber repair | $3,800 - $5,800 |
| Partial rebuild (roofline up, up to 6 courses) | $4,500 - $7,200 |
| Full chimney rebuild (below roofline to top) | $7,500 - $12,000+ |
What moves you up or down within these ranges: flue height and accessibility, whether we need scaffolding or ladder staging on your slope-sited lot, the condition of the smoke chamber and firebox, and whether the crown and wash need replacement too. We don’t guess at these numbers over the phone. Every estimate starts with a Level-2 inspection - photos you can see, a plain-English verdict - and the price we quote is the price on the invoice. No surprises. Call (844) 803-1545 for a free estimate.
Standing offers: $50 off any repair over $250, free second opinion on any written estimate, $89 seasonal tune-up, and a permanent 5% senior and veteran discount.
We Also Serve Cities Near Crafton
Our crews work throughout the western Pittsburgh corridor, including Crafton, Dormont, Carnegie, McKees Rocks, and Mount Lebanon. The same live-answer phone line, the same upfront pricing, the same 90-Day Done Right Promise applies whether we’re lining a flue off Cochran Road or rebuilding a stack near the Lebanon border. We also handle Chimney Cleaning & Sweep in Crafton and Chimney Repair in Crafton - many homeowners bundle a cleaning with their liner inspection to catch creosote buildup before it complicates the installation.
Serving Crafton, PA - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the Crafton area and know this community well. Use the map below to see our service coverage - if you’re nearby, we can almost certainly help.
FAQs - Chimney Liner & Rebuild in Crafton
We typically arrive within 90 minutes during business hours and same-day for emergencies called in before 2 p.m. Our crews are staged throughout Allegheny County, and we’ve been driving to Crafton since 1984, so we know the quickest routes whether you’re off Noble Street, up near the borough line, or on one of the hillside streets off Crafton Boulevard. For after-hours emergencies, a live person answers the phone 24/7 and dispatches the on-call technician directly. Call (844) 803-1545 - we’ll give you a firm arrival window, not a four-hour guess.
Yes. We work across the entire borough, from the flat streetcar-era blocks near the business district to the slope-sited homes along the ridge lines. The hilltop properties actually make up a significant share of our Crafton calls because the exposed chimneys up there take more wind and rain. We’ve installed liners and rebuilt stacks on Bradford Avenue, Summit Street, West Steuben, and the smaller streets branching off Crafton Boulevard. The ZIP we cover is 15220.
Yes. A failed liner or structurally compromised chimney isn’t a wait-until-Monday situation if carbon monoxide is backing into the house or bricks are falling to the roof. Our emergency line - (844) 803-1545 - connects to a live person who can dispatch a technician to secure the chimney, install temporary venting if needed, and schedule permanent repair. We completed an emergency liner replacement last January on a home near the top of the hill when the original clay liner collapsed during a cold snap and blocked the furnace flue entirely.
Not significantly for the work itself, but site conditions in Crafton often add complexity compared to flatter suburbs. The slope-sited lots, original coal-era chimneys with offset flues, and tight access on some of the borough’s older streets can mean more labor hours than a straightforward installation in a 1990s ranch in Mount Lebanon. We price for the actual job, not the ZIP code. Our free estimate includes a full inspection so you know exactly why the number is what it is. Call (844) 803-1545 to schedule - estimates are free, and we honor our $50 off any repair over $250 and free second opinion offers.
Every liner installation and rebuild is backed by our 90-Day Done Right Promise - in writing, no arguing. If the liner seal fails, the masonry settles, or anything about the job isn’t right, we return and correct it at no charge. Beyond that period, manufacturer warranties apply: DuraFlex and Olympia Chimney stainless liners carry 20-year and lifetime limited warranties respectively, and we register the installation to ensure you’re covered. We’ve been in business since 1984 and plan to be here thirty more years, so when we say we stand behind the work, there’s a company behind the promise. Call (844) 803-1545 with any warranty question - a live person answers.
Written by Russell Haines, Owner at Hearthstone Chimney Co., serving Crafton and western Pittsburgh communities since 1984.